february
I.
what i told myself in the shower.
these streets cling to me,
warm and gold fingers
lacing hair in
cold ropes past my ankles,
always forward to
ocean
skies painted with
faded stains of
amusement park
signs,
blurs of seats and sunsets and summers
i imagined we touched.
i need to
run home.
II.
practice crying with me.
i am
second choice second set of
footsteps to the beach
you pass me and my mind
shouts
wait.
you do not hear
and the road roars,
hungry and craving for you
as i
paint dangerous
worlds in
crimson and
blue.
III.
things we waste.
i have spent
my entire life
seeping through someone’s arms,
astrolabe balanced in
trembling hands but
somehow i am
lost,
alone at sea.
IV.
i left someone on valentine’s day.
i am the hate atop a
lemon tree, i am the aftertaste
of far-gone leftovers,
lasagna sealed into eternal
death at
the back of the fridge.
and i cry. i cry because
i have no grip
and the yarn between my fingers
slips,
rugburns and faded blue-green pigment
to paint across my too-fat cheecks. i
look to the lemons and they
cannot smile back
for i am not worthy
of dimples.
no one will wither
with me.
hold me, softly
then
take the boughs i graced
brace my back
and break it.
